Quotes of the day

“President Obama’s re-election campaign is beginning an intensified effort this week to build support among women, using the debate over the new health care law to amplify an appeal that already appears to be benefiting from partisan clashes over birth control and abortion.

“On Monday, mailings will go out to one million women in more than a dozen battleground states in three separate versions for mothers, young women and older women, campaign and party officials said.

“An effort called ‘Nurses for Obama’ will begin on Wednesday, with nurses nationwide enlisted to be advocates for the health care law in their communities…

“Through the month, ending with what the campaign’s headquarters has designated a ‘Women’s Week of Action,’ campaign field offices will organize phone banks, campus activities, house parties and media events featuring local residents helped by the law, officials say.”

“You’ve got to hand it to Democratic strategists. Who would have thought six months ago that in the lead up to perhaps the most important presidential election of our time, the hottest political topic in the country would not be the weak economy, high unemployment, the huge national debt, record gas prices, or turmoil in the Middle East. Instead it’s Women’s Rights, or at least that’s what the Democratic party is calling it while miraculously managing to keep a straight face.

“A term that was once used in conjunction with women’s suffrage and the right to vote is suddenly synonymous in the modern day with free contraceptives at the expense of others. Gone are the likes of true icons like Susan B. Anthony. Now we have Sandra Fluke and her heroic crusade to mandate that her sexual lifestyle choices be subsidized. How proud the Democratic party must feel right now to have successfully revitalized the civil rights movement in the 21st century by equating it with luxury entitlement. The media must feel pretty good too. They’ve actually been able to substantiate this ridiculous narrative to the American public… or at least a targeted voting block within the American public.

“The Republicans’ War on Women – that’s the poll-tested talking point coming out of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC these days. Despite the absurdity and insulting nature of the claim, the mantra sure is getting a lot of attention. It’s also proving to be an effective weapon – one of several weapons from a year-long arsenal of distractions designed to keep the Republican party off step, off topic, and constantly on the defensive at a time when President Obama is wrapping up what is surely the most dismal presidential term of my lifetime.”

“One woman in the Iditarod crowd yelled at the senator. Another was more civil, but made the same point: Murkowski ticked off a lot of women with that vote.

“‘With her vote, Murkowski showed her true colors and put her party’s anti-female agenda ahead of the Alaska women she is supposed to represent,’ Fairbanks resident Michelle Cason wrote to the editor of the city’s Daily News-Miner.

“Before the weekend was out, Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News that she regretted her vote.

“‘I knew going into it that there was conflict there,’ Murkowski said in a telephone interview this past week. When she got home to Alaska, she knew. ‘I think I made a mistake.’”

“When a Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey asked in the summer which party should control Congress, 46 percent of women favored Democrats and 42 percent preferred Republican control.

“But in a survey released Monday, compiling data since the beginning of the year, that figure had widened considerably to a 15-point advantage for the Democrats, according to polling by the team of Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican Bill McInturff. Fifty-one percent favored Democratic control; only 36 percent wanted to see the Republicans in charge…

“GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s campaign, said Republicans need to return to pocketbook and fiscal issues. ‘We know what works,’ she said, ‘and we need to get back to it.’…

“A GOP strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s situation frankly, said: ‘It’s devastating. I don’t think it’s going to go away. I think it’s going to be a significant challenge the Republican nominee is going to inherit.’”

“Now, the contraception controversy ‘has really closed the intensity gap with unmarried (Democratic-leaning) women in particular, who weren’t as likely to turn out,’ said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. ‘Republicans have done what, honestly, we couldn’t have done better if we’d designed a strategy ourselves.’…

“Meanwhile, many conservatives have come to believe the entire controversy was ginned up by Obama.

“‘It’s straight from the Saul Alinsky radical playbook – stage a fake war on women to divert attention from devastating economic policies that are hurting men and women,’ said Jennifer Stefano, a tea party leader from Bucks County, Pa., who is now state director of Americans for Prosperity.

“‘It’s sexist to cast women as victims who need big government to be their big daddy.’”

“In Iowa, one of the crucial battlegrounds in the coming presidential election, and in other states, dozens of interviews in recent weeks have found that moderate Republican and independent women — one of the most important electoral swing groups — are disenchanted by the Republican focus on social issues like contraception and abortion in an election that, until recently, had been mostly dominated by the economy…

“‘Everybody is so busy telling us how we should act in the bedroom, they’re letting the country fall through the cracks,’ said Fran Kelley, a retired public school worker in Seattle who voted for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama in the 2008 election. Of the Republican candidates this year, she added, ‘They’re nothing but hatemongers trying to control everyone, saying, ‘Live as I live.’…

“Last week Joyce Kimball, a retired secretary in Greenville, Ill., who voted for Mr. McCain in 2008, said she had recently become ‘fed up,’ adding that it was not out of the question for her to vote for a Democrat in November. ‘I’m looking to hear how the candidates propose to put people back to work, not what they think about contraception,’ she said. ‘I hope to God they stop talking about this.’”

“Of course, Democrats started the conversation, but it was a good conversation to start if the goal was to get some Republicans to say some things that could be used against them. Fortunately, Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate who is going to be the nominee, had the sense not to say much. He was “tepid.” Good! We don’t want the government in our bedroom, so we don’t need a passionate President. Let him stay in his office and coolly and calmly do his job, which shouldn’t have anything to do with sex. He’s not our boyfriend.

“Man, I loathe this pandering to women! Don’t treat us like we’re stupid. Don’t act like we need your special protection. Don’t buy us things.”

Via Mediaite.

• Sebelius touts ObamaCare as a boon to graduates instead of the war on the young it actually is
• Chris Christie’s challenger is going for it with a million-dollar ad buy in New Jersey
• Chuck Todd: The Obama administration is trying to “criminalize journalism”

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